SSD prices are climbing fast
If you have been planning a storage upgrade for your gaming PC, the start of 2026 has brought some bad news. After a couple of years of falling prices, SSDs are now firmly caught up in a new memory supply crisis and the impact on gaming focused drives is hard to ignore.
A clear example is the 1 TB Lexar NM790 NVMe SSD, a popular budget friendly drive for gaming. Back in October it was selling for around 66 dollars. Today it is 118 dollars, and within the last month it even hit close to 150 dollars according to Amazon price tracker Camelcamelcamel. That is roughly a 50 percent jump in only four months.
Higher capacity SSDs are being hit even harder. The 4 TB WD Black SN850X, a well known high performance PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive for gamers, shows eye watering differences between retailers. Best Buy has listed it at over 1,000 dollars, while Newegg is selling the same model for around 520 dollars. Historical price charts show a steep spike from November 2025 through early 2026.
The 8 TB version of the WD Black SN850X tells a similar story. In May it was a relatively good deal compared with buying two 4 TB drives. Now it costs around 1,080 dollars at Newegg, an increase of almost 55 percent. Some of these models are even older stock without the latest Sandisk rebrand, so we are not just paying extra for refreshed labels. On Amazon, the 8 TB model is out of stock, but price history still shows another dramatic surge starting in November 2025 and pushing into January 2026.
Look across common tracking tools and you see the same pattern repeated: big price swings and a strong overall climb for consumer SSDs during winter 2025 and early 2026.
Why SSDs are getting so expensive
The core issue is not just retailers being greedy or one or two bad listings. SSDs sit inside a broader memory ecosystem that is under serious pressure. DRAM, NAND flash, and even hard drives have all been dragged into what some in the industry are calling a memory apocalypse.
The rapid build out of data centres for AI workloads is a huge part of the problem. Modern AI training and inference systems use enormous amounts of:
- DRAM and other system memory for active data and model parameters
- NAND based SSDs for high speed storage and massive datasets
As more AI data centres go online, they soak up a growing share of the global memory and storage output. These facilities are being built quickly, sometimes in locations that are not even ideal for the hardware inside, but they have one thing in common. They are backed by companies with deep pockets that are willing to lock in huge orders to secure supply.
Manufacturing capacity for DRAM and NAND cannot be expanded overnight. Fabrication plants cost billions and take years to build or upgrade. That means when a new giant customer appears and starts buying everything it can, the rest of the market has to fight over what remains. In this case, the rest of the market is normal PC users and gamers.
Industry voices have been warning about this for months. In October, Adata chairman Chen Libai noted that most major memory and storage technologies were facing simultaneous shortages for the first time in around thirty years. By November, Phison CEO Khein Seng Pua was openly saying that every NAND manufacturer had effectively sold out their capacity for 2026 and that flash storage prices had roughly doubled in just a few months.
Then in December, Kingston representative Cameron Crandall revealed that the company had seen a 246 percent increase in NAND wafer prices, with the steepest jumps arriving in the previous sixty days. Wafer cost is a fundamental input for SSDs, so that kind of move inevitably flows through to retail prices.
Put together, these signals explain why consumer SSD prices are not just creeping up but surging. There is a genuine supply squeeze under way and the big enterprise and AI buyers are first in line.
What PC gamers should do now
For gamers and PC builders, the natural reaction is to panic. When industry insiders say buy now because prices will keep going up, it is tempting to rush for the checkout. However that strategy is not always the best move.
Panic buying in the middle of a shortage can leave you overpaying for hardware you do not really need. Before you drop serious money on a new SSD, take a step back and look at your actual situation.
- If your existing SSD still has space and your games are loading fine, consider sticking with what you have. The market is volatile and while prices might rise further, they can also come down again once capacity catches up or demand shifts.
- If you truly need more storage right now, shop carefully. Compare prices across multiple retailers and double check price history where you can. Avoid obviously inflated listings because some are far above the already higher market level.
- Consider capacity trade offs. A smaller high quality SSD might make more sense than stretching for a huge 4 TB or 8 TB model at today’s inflated prices, especially if you can manage your library across multiple drives.
- In very specific situations, a prebuilt gaming PC might even be more cost effective than upgrading a single component. Some systems bundle decent CPUs, GPUs and SSDs at a price that is competitive with current stand alone storage costs. This will not apply to everyone but it is worth checking if you are already considering a broader upgrade.
The key takeaway for PC gamers is simple. SSDs are no longer the easy bargain they were a year ago, and the AI driven memory crunch is a real factor behind the pain. Do not rush into upgrades unless you have a clear need, and when you do buy, make sure you are getting a sensible deal in a market that has suddenly become a lot more chaotic.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ssds/unfortunately-all-of-that-doomsaying-last-year-was-correct-and-ssd-prices-are-surging-as-a-result-of-the-memory-crisis/
